


i have burned your bridges

by nirav



Series: we are falling but not alone [1]
Category: RWBY
Genre: F/F, Gen, Leverage AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-24
Updated: 2019-07-24
Packaged: 2020-07-12 14:27:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19947658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nirav/pseuds/nirav
Summary: “I know you aren’t a thief,” Cinder says.  “I have a thief.  And a hacker.  Criminals, I’ve got.  What I need is one honest woman to keep them in line.”





	i have burned your bridges

**Author's Note:**

> for [smallandsundry](https://smallandsundry.tumblr.com/), who's always asked me to write an au like this for her, and props to [thecousinsdangereux](https://thecousinsdangereux.tumblr.com/) for getting me to actually, y'know. write it.

“Weiss Schnee?”

The concentration wrinkling her forehead barely wavers, her eyes not looking away from the laptop in front of her; if not for the barest flinch of one eyebrow and the way it pulled at the scar over her eye, it would have been like she hadn’t heard anything.

“Who’s asking?”

A woman settles down across from hair, dark eyes appraising from the other side of the desk.

“I have a proposition for you.”

“I’m not interested.” Her focus doesn’t pull away from the computer.

“I know what your father did to you,” she says, undeterred when Weiss’s gaze snaps over to her finally.

“Then you know that if you keep talking about it, I’m likely to punch you in the face."

“I have a proposition for you,” she says again. “That comes with the bonus of _seriously_ pissing off Jacques Schnee.”

Weiss folds her arms over her chest and leans back, finger tapping methodically against her forearm. “Who are you again?”

“Call me Cinder,” she says smoothly. She offers a file folder to Weiss, waiting long seconds before settling it delicately on the desktop instead. “My company was robbed last month, six weeks before a quarterly shareholder meeting. Two years of intellectual property, millions of lines of code, were copied and then scrubbed from out servers. A week after, my main competitor announced an ad hoc shareholder meeting of their own.”

“I’m still not seeing why I should care.” Weiss flips the file open anyways, lips pursing as she skims through the project overview and code snippets. 

“One of the primary investors in my competitor’s company is a VC fund. JBS Investments.”

“My father’s fund,” Weiss says slowly. “And you want me to do what about it?”

Cinder leans forward, elbows on the desk. “I want you to steal my code back for me.”

One eyebrow lifts slowly, and Weiss pushes the folder back to her. “Just because I was born into the Schnee family doesn’t mean I’m a thief. Leave, now.”

“I know you aren’t a thief,” Cinder says, one hand waving lazily. She nudges the file back towards her. “I have a thief. And a hacker. Criminals, I’ve got. What I need is one honest woman to keep them in line.”

Weiss stares back across the desk at her, one finger tapping slowly against the desktop. 

“You were one of the most promising corporate strategists of an entire generation,” Cinder carries on. “Right up until you exposed your father’s disgusting business practices and were forced out. And now you’re toiling away behind some nonprofit, your intellect completely wasted. Why not do some real good, some tangible good, _and_ deal a forty million dollar blow to your father in the process?”

Weiss stares blankly at her, figures turning in her head, before she looks back down to the file and turns further through the pages.

“This is the team?”

“The best money can buy,” Cinder says smoothly. “The most dangerous assassin anyone’s ever seen, a hacker who’s been cracking open the Pentagon since she was eight years old, and--”

“Blake Belladonna?” Weiss’s eyes snap back up. “You got Blake Belladonna?”

“She’s the best,” Cinder says with a shrug.

“She robbed my family’s house _nine times_.”

“And she was never caught, was she?”

Weiss pulls in a deep breath. “And they’re all on board?”

“For a quarter million each, yes,” Cinder says. She flicks at one of her fingernails. “And it’s twice as much to you once it’s done.”

Weiss stares back down at the file, arrest records and mugshots staring back up at her.

“Fine,” she says eventually. “I’m in.”

* * *

They meet in an airline hangar, similar to the ones Weiss’s family owns but left empty and dusty. Weiss is the first one there, a collection of paperwork spread out across the card table in front of her, blueprints scattered with guard rotations and personnel files. She’s never orchestrated a heist before, but if she’s going to do it, she’s going to do it right.

“You’re part of this?”

The voice appears behind her and Weiss nearly topples over in surprise, spinning on her heel and almost falling into the table. Barely two feet away, Blake Belladonna has her arms folded over her chest and mouth set in a hard line. Weiss had seen her picture probably a hundred times but in person she's taller than Weiss had imagined, with stronger shoulders and sharper features, forever arranged into a disdainful frown. At least that's familiar.

“I am,” Weiss says sharply, righting herself and pulling up to as much height as she can manage. “Is that a problem?”

“It’s a surprise,” she says slowly. Her head tilts to one side and she circles to the right, looping lazily around Weiss and the table, slow and methodical. “Given that your illustrious family has poured millions of dollars into the people we’re going to rip off.”

“I’m not part of that,” Weiss says, automatic and unplanned. “I-- we’re estranged.”

“The prodigal daughter, all on her own.” Blake keeps circling, and Weiss folds her hands behind her back and holds her chin high, refusing to turn to keep Blake in her eyeline. “That’s intriguing.”

“SDC was fine before my father took over it,” Weiss says levelly. “He’s ruined it with immoral business practices and I wanted nothing to do with it.”

“So you ran away?” Blake stops just to her side, close enough that Weiss can see the faint clench of her jaw. 

“I tried to stop him,” Weiss throws back. “And I got fired and disowned for it.”

“Poor little rich girl, all on her own with just a trust fund?”

“Disowned,” Weiss says again. “Completely. I still have some contact with my-- but I lost everything. No money, no trust fund, no apartment, no job. Everything.”

“And you’re here to steal it back, now?”

“I’m here because my father is a shitty person and I want him to hurt, and the only way to hurt him is to hurt his wallet.”

Blake raises an eyebrow, linking her hands behind her back and leaning her head to one side. “I see.”

One of the doors clatters open, snapping through the tension, and Weiss turns abruptly. Anything to take the focus off of her and her family’s name. 

The others-- the assassin and the hacker-- jostle through the door, the taller one wedging through first with a triumphant laugh, followed closely by the smaller one.

“Hey, you guys must be--”

“This is the team?” Weiss says slowly, jaw dropping as she takes in the two of them: one tall and jovial, dressed for yoga and slurping on an iced coffee, the other short and bouncing on the balls of her feet. “I’m supposed to believe that one of you is the best hacker on the planet and the other is--”

“I’m the muscle, baby,” the blonde says around the straw in her mouth, and winks brightly at her. “I’m Yang, and this is Ruby.” She tilts her head towards the other one and props an elbow on top of her head. “And y’all are…?”

“I--” Weiss shakes her head. “I’m Weiss. That’s Blake. She’s a--”

“Charmed,” Blake says flatly. “Are we going to do this?”

“All business, yeesh,” Yang says with a huff. “Right to it, then.”

Ruby ducks out from under her arm and bounces over to Weiss’s side, peering down at the table full of papers. “Is this--”

“Everything I have so far,” Weiss says. She huffs out a sigh when Blake slides up to the table, leaving barely any room for Weiss, and steps back to let them look over everything. Yang settles at her side and slurps on her coffee, and Weiss tries to pretend she’s not standing next to someone who has a heavily redacted military file three feet thick and a list of confirmed kills longer than Weiss’s arm. Not that she looks it, precisely, with her masses of blonde hair and yoga pants and oversized hoodie drooping over her shoulders.

“I’m not going in that way,” Blake mutters at Ruby. “I can get around the--”

“I can shut those down,” Ruby says confidently. “It’s easy, and that’s a more direct route to--”

“I don’t take orders from you,” Blake throws back.

“Oh, this is going to be fun,” Yang says, slapping at Weiss’s shoulder cheerfully.

* * *

“So, Schnee,” Yang says from where she’s lounging on the floor, feet kicked up on the edge of Ruby’s chair. “Ready for your first foray into the criminal world?”

“First,” Blake snorts out, putting her earpiece in. “Check.”

“Yes, _first_ ,” Weiss snaps back. She puts her own earpiece and offers her own check loud enough to make Blake wince.

“Your entire family is full of criminals,” Blake says. She tugs her jacket it on. “It’s in your blood.”

“You’re a literal thief.” Weiss rolls her eyes and opens her laptop. “Come on, all of you, get going. We don’t have all night.”

“Guess being bossy also runs in the family,” Blake mutters, and Weiss bites down on the inside of her cheek to stop from sticking her tongue out. “Got everything handled here, princess?”

“I’ll handle my end of things,” Weiss says and sniffs as Blake stalks off, silent as always. Ruby shoves her earpiece in and throws out her check and then bounds after Blake, practically vibrating with excitement. Yang watches them go, still on the floor with her limbs sprawled out, dark jeans and dark sweater blurring into the dull concrete and eyes locked unashamedly on Blake's retreating form.

“She is _so hot_ ,” Yang mumbles before flipping up to her feet quickly and grabbing her own earbud. “Check and I’m ready to go.” She slaps a loud kiss on top of Weiss’s hair, leaving her flailing under it, and skips after the others.

“I hate this,” Weiss grumbles. 

“You love us!” Ruby and Yang chorus through the earbuds, and Weiss groans.

* * *

“Blake?” Yang folds her arms over her chest and leans against the wall. “You got it?”

Blake wrinkles her nose and stands from where she’d been kneeling in front of the vault-like door to the server room. “It’s encrypted. I can get around it, but it’ll be faster if--”

Ruby zooms between her and the door, nearly knocking her over, and Yang steps smoothly to one side to catch her around the waist when she almost stumbles.

“Ten digit rotating alphanumeric code,” Ruby breathes out. She scrambles in her bag and surfaces with something to wire into the door. “As if that would stop _me_.”

Blake yanks herself out of Yang’s hold with a huff. “Don’t touch me.”

“Sure,” Yang says easily, holding her hands up with a shrug. “You’re the boss.”

“We don’t _have_ a boss,” Ruby mutters without turning around.

“I’m _your_ boss, pipsqueak,” Yang says with a bright grin, practically lighting up the entire hallway, and Blake pauses, frowns, glares. 

“You’re going to get us pinched if you don’t keep it down,” she says pointedly.

“I’ve never gotten pinched in my life, thank you very much,” Yang says, folding her arms over her chest. “Unless I asked nicely for it.” 

Blake glares more pointedly at her, arms folding over her own chest much more combatively. “What are you even here for?”

Yang shrugs again and smiles again, wide and blinding. “Just along for the ride.”

“Can I get an ETA?” Weiss’s voice crackles over the earbuds. “If you’re all quite done bickering like children.”

“Ooh, ice princess is big mad,” Yang says with a wink at Blake, who nearly smiles in spite of herself when Weiss’s irritation sputters over the intercom.

“Ninety seconds,” Ruby offers.

“Shit,” Weiss says, and they all freeze. “There’re only two guards left at the desk, they others must be rounding early--”

“What? Why?” Blake’s weight shifts immediately, moving lighter onto her toes and scanning the hallway quickly.

“I-- _shit_ ,” Weiss mutters again. “They’re watching basketball, those bastards.”

“It’s the playoffs,” Yang offers. 

“Terrible employees,” Weiss says with a huff. “Get out of there.”

“We can do it,” Ruby says.

“Where are they?” Yang says levelly. 

“One floor down from you,” Weiss says after a moment. “You won’t make it, you have to get out now.”

“No!” Ruby says, sharp and thin. “Fifty seconds and we’re in--”

“I’m not getting pinched because you don’t have the good sense to leave when you should,” Blake snaps. She yanks a set of lockpicks out and shoves past Yang to a supply room door. “We need to wait it out and try again.”

“Yang,” Ruby says insistently. “I just need a minute.”

“Ruby, keep going” Weiss hisses over the intercom, over Blake’s protest. “Yang, cover them. Now!”

Yang pushes lazily off the wall at the sound of the doorknob at the end of the hall turning. Blake gets the supply door unlocked and turns to find herself left in the hall with Ruby, Yang nowhere to be seen, just as three guards appear.

“Hey!”

“Goddammit,” Blake mutters when Ruby only looks up and waves cheerfully at the three of them. She steps slowly back from the door, hands out, measuring angles and distances and how quickly she can move without getting shot and whether it’s worth it to put her body between Ruby’s and the guns pointing at them. She’s basically a kid, after all, but she’s also merrily going along with getting them all arrested, so the odds are even.

“Drop the-- drop it!”

“The lockpick?” Blake drawls out, holding her palm out open and flat.

“Drop it! Both of you!”

She shrugs, lazy and slow, and lifts her hands over her head, moving exaggeratedly and slowly letting the lockpick slide off her palm.

Behind the guards, Yang appears out of the shadows, blonde hair flashing brightly. A boot slams into the back of one guard’s knee, an elbow to the back of another’s head, Yang moving faster than even Blake can track. Lightning fast punches snap the last guard’s head back and Yang catches his gun before it falls out of his grip, smoothly ejecting the clip and tossing it aside. Blake’s lockpick hits the floor just before the last guard does, and Yang turns to face her with an easy smile.

“That’s what I’m here for.” 

A beep sounds behind Blake, and Ruby hops up and down with a flourish. “Weiss, we’re in.”

“You three are unbelievable,” Weiss mutters over the earbuds. “Get it and get out. I’ll meet you all downstairs.”

“So bossy,” Blake says again, even as she slides past Ruby and sets to picking the locks on the cages holding the servers. 

* * *

They part ways easily, Weiss walking away with a hard drive in her pocket and three criminals splitting off in different directions behind her. She deposits it in the train station locker Cinder had given her the key to and walks home in the dead of night, warmed against the cold weather by the fact that her father can push her out of the family but she can still hurt him. It calms her and the buzzing adrenaline in her chest and she swallows a hefty glass of whiskey, flops back onto her shitty bed in her shitty apartment, and sleeps easily.

Easily, at least, until her phone shrieks at nine and she picks it up to Cinder yelling about being screwed.

“You doublecrossed me!” she yells over the phone. “The hard drive is _empty_.”

“You hired _criminals_ , Cinder, what did you expect?” Weiss says, rubbing at her eyes. “They must have swapped the hard drives when we--”

“I hired _you_ to keep them honest!” 

“Just-- let me--”

“Two hours, the old Schnee warehouse by pier 42,” Cinder snaps. “Be there or I will _ruin_ you.”

The call ends abruptly, and Weiss sighs and flops back across the bed. As if she wasn’t already ruined already, living in a shoebox on the fifth floor of a seven-floor walkup. She groans and pushes herself upright, shuffling over to shower, too tired of it all-- thievery and dishonesty, corporate espionage, the constant machinations of the filthy rich-- to care.

* * *

Blake is there when Weiss arrives, standing casually in the center of the empty warehouse with a gun held lazily in one hand. 

“You switched the hard drives,” Weiss says by way of greeting. 

“I didn’t,” Blake says. “I’m here because there’s no money in my account, and I don’t appreciate getting stiffed.”

Behind them, Ruby and Yang stomp in. Weiss turns slowly, holding her breath steady even though there’s no gun in either of their hands. Not that Yang would need one.

“You screwed us,” Ruby snaps out. “Where’s our--”

“Money,” Weiss says slowly. “You weren’t paid either?”

“And you know we weren’t,” Yang says, slow and level, terrifyingly calm, and Weiss wishes briefly, desperately, for the Yang and Ruby from ten hours ago, all blinding bright smiles and easy excitement. 

“Well, obviously now I do.” Weiss rolls her eyes. “None of you were paid? And you all-- came here. To get paid?”

“Yes,” Blake says sharply. “So where is it?”

Weiss turns in a slow circle, taking them all in, contingencies turning over in her head. “She said she didn’t have the files-- and she didn’t pay any of you-- and we’re all _here_.” 

“In one place,” Yang says slowly, and realization lights behind her eyes. She grabs Ruby’s shoulder and shoves her towards the door. “Go, now!”

“What?”

“Now, Ruby!” Yang shoves her again and then shoves Weiss towards the door as well, free hand yanking the gun out of Blake’s hand and locking around her arm as well, bodily moving them all towards the door even against Ruby’s confusion and Blake’s protest and Wiess stumbling over Ruby’s foot--

They make it clear of the building just before it explodes, and for the first time since Weiss was left abandoned and penniless, her stomach sinks because she’s in _trouble_.

* * *

“What is this place?” Blake’s the first one through the door, still scrubbing uselessly at her filthy shirt with a frown, as if she can will way the evidence of the explosion. Weiss follows after, moving gingerly, her elbow stinging and ribs bruising from the impact. Of all of them, she’d landed the worst, saved only from a concussion by Yang catching her skull just before the whiplash smashed it into the pavement.

“Our apartment,” Yang says blithely. She makes a beeline for the kitchen, stomping across the open floor plan and flinging the fridge open to retrieve a beer. “She tried to blow us up. I don’t like it when people try to blow us up.”

She drains her beer and grabs another one, then three more and plops them on the counter in front of everyone else.

“Yang, it’s not even noon--”

“Who gives a shit,” Weiss mutters as she twists the top of one and takes a long swallow.

“Fair enough,” Ruby says, following suit. She pops open her own beer and takes a sip and then settles at the kitchen table, booting up a laptop.

“You said you didn’t make copies,” Weiss says, even as the edge of a smile starts to build.

“Scout’s honor.” Ruby doesn’t look away from the laptop.

“She wasn’t a scout,” Yang says helpfully.

“Anything helpful in there?” Blake perches on the counter, back to Weiss and Yang deliberately. 

“I only looked at it a little earlier,” Ruby says slowly. “But- here.” She spins the laptop around to show a screenful of code to them.

“I don’t know what that means,” Blake says.

Weiss rounds the counter and picks up the laptop, squinting at the code. 

“What, the Schnee MBA Princess knows coding?”

“I know enough,” Weiss mutters. “This is Whitley’s code. I’d recognize it anywhere. He wrote this program.”

“So?” 

Weiss hands the laptop back to Ruby and heads back to the counter, where Yang pulls her half-empty beer bottle out of reach and produces a bottle of whiskey instead. Weiss takes a long swallow and squeezes her eyes shut tight.

“We stole from the company that Cinder said stole from her. She must have wanted Whitley’s work for her own business, since it hadn’t been announced yet, so she could get a jump on it and call it proprietary.” She takes another long sip of the whiskey. “She played us into doing her dirty work and then tried to kill us to cover it up.”

“So what do we do now?” Ruby’s eyes are wide and locked onto Yang’s, who’s looking calmly from Blake to Weiss and back again.

“We scatter,” Blake says, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “This was a one time thing, and I’m faster without any of you.”

“So _you_ say,” Yang says, charming even in her anger. “But yeah. No. We bounce.” She sighs and drops her chin into her hands. “I’m going to miss this place.”

“You’re running?” Weiss blinks at all of them. “Three of the best criminals in the world and one overpriced CFO doublecrosses you and now you’re going to _run away_?”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Blake says. “Should we file a police a report? Call the FBI? Tell them the mean criminal lady who paid us to _commit a crime_ didn’t pay us?”

“I mean, sure, if you’re an idiot,” Weiss says with a huff, unperturbed by the way Blake bristles sharply and Yang’s eyebrows lift. “Or I guess you could run away. Sure. Great idea.”

“I don’t hear you offering a better idea,” Ruby sniffs.

“You get her back,” Weiss says simply. She shoves away from the counter and paces across the living room, pushing a hand through her hair and pulling in a deep breath.

“What?” It’s Yang, calmer and quieter than she usually is, and Weiss can’t tell if that’s a good thing or a bad one.

“She used us all,” Weiss says softly. “She used what happened with my family against me, and she thinks it worked. And I’m not going to let her get away with it. I want to make her pay for it.”

“And how do you propose we do that, exactly?” For the first time since this all started, Blake’s lips don’t curl up disdainfully when she speaks to Weiss.

“She pulled a con on us,” Weiss says. “Let’s return the favor.”

She’s met with a long silence that stretches out between them all, filling the wide open spaces of the oversized apartment. 

“I’m in,” Yang says easily with a shrug. Ruby immediately agrees, back over at Yang’s side.

“Belladonna?” Weiss says.

Blake stares her down, arms folded over her chest and jaw set tight, and Weiss lifts her chin and glares back as sharply as she can.

“You’re not what I expected, Schnee,” Blake says after an excruciatingly long moment. “I’m in.”

“We need someone new,” Weiss says. “Someone who won’t be recognized.”

Ruby huffs out a breath. “What makes you think any of us know anyone else we can trust?”

“I know someone,” Blake volunteers. “It’s--well. She’ll help.”

“Who is it?”

“My ex,” Blake says, stealing the bottle from Weiss’s hands and taking a long sip of her own.

“Oh, this is going to be so much fun,” Yang says with a grin so bright it could light the whole building, drawing a reluctant smile from Blake, short and small and rerouted directly into a put-upon frown, and excitement burns bright in Weiss’s chest.

* * *

Ruby and Yang’s apartment is enormous for just the two of them, but warmer than any of the oversized luxury lofts Weiss had ever lived in before being disowned. She wanders down the hallway, away from where Ruby and Yang are bickering about ordering pizza and Blake is staring angrily out the window, whiskey in hand and shoulders set against anyone speaking to her. Spare bedrooms and an office and a gym slide by in her peripheries and she eventually turns into a nearly sterile bathroom.

Her face is filthy, skin smudged with soot and dirt; her sweater, the warmest one she’d packed up before leaving her whole life behind, had already been marching towards threadbare and now, after barely surviving an explosion, is torn in more places than Weiss can count. She stares into the mirror and the way her eyes are bloodshot, her mouth turned down in the seemingly permanent frown she’d worn in recent years. Her aching hands, bruised and scraped from the explosion, press flat against the counter, shoulders trembling.

The door’s half open, and a sudden knock nearly has her jumping out of her skin.

“What--”

“Sorry!” Ruby says, uncharacteristically quiet, hand still raised to knock. “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” Weiss says automatically, even as her voice wavers. “I’m just--tired.”

“Yeah, imagine that.” Ruby bounces into the room and hops up to sit on the counter. “Getting blown up is exhausting, right?”

“What, you have a ton of experience with that?” 

Ruby twists around and opens the medicine cabinet, retrieving a first aid kit and offering it to Weiss. “Once or twice. Not as many times as Yang, though.”

“Ideally, no one would be getting blown up,” Weiss says drily. She sorts through the first aid kit, pulling gauze and disinfectant free. It’s old but well stocked, filled with mismatched brands of bandages and suture kits, refilled over and over. 

“Well, maybe.” Ruby shrugs again. “But then again: criminals. So.”

“I’m not a criminal,” Weiss says immediately, and Ruby turns, pulls her knees up to her chest, stares her down. “I’m a-- I’m trying. To be a good person.”

“You’re a good person,” Ruby says after a long moment. “Even if you don’t believe it. And this, doing what we’re going to do? That won’t make you _not_ a good person. Just like your family doesn’t make you a bad person.”

"Easy for you to say," Weiss mutters, immediately regretting it when she's faced with Ruby's wide unwavering eyes. "I'm sorry, that was-- thank you."

"We're a team, Weiss," Ruby says quietly, especially so for her. "Even if you're not going to believe in yourself, we will, because we're a team."

"For now, we are." Weiss busies her hands with ripping open a packet of gauze. Her fingers shake with exhaustion. 

"Yeah," Ruby mumbles. "For now." She slides off the sink. "There are towels under the sink if you want to shower, and you can borrow some clothes."

She disappears out of the bathroom, shutting the door behind her and leaving Weiss alone yet again.

* * *

Weiss sets up with Ruby two blocks away from Cinder’s building, hidden behind laptops and enormous cups of coffee. 

“Are you sure she can handle this?”

“She’s fine,” Blake mutters over the earbud.

“ _She_ can hear you,” Ilia adds, and Ruby flushes bright red and ducks her head down.

“Can we all focus, please?” Weiss kicks Ruby’s shin under the table.

“Bossypants,” Yang says cheerfully from her spot across the street from the building with Blake.

“Ilia, you good?” Weiss says.

“I’ve got eyes on Cinder,” she says quietly. Ruby scoots around the table and turns her laptop so Weiss can see the screen and the jostling video from the button camera on Ilia’s blazer. 

“Don’t push her too hard,” Weiss says, soft and careful even as her fingers curl into a fist at the sight of Cinder. “The meeting is on her calendar but she won’t have checked, they never do. Let her ask the questions.”

“She’s got it, princess,” Blake interrupts. “Let her work.”

Weiss’s teeth grind together to stop her from snapping at Blake, and somehow it’s Ruby’s hand on her arm that helps her breathe through it. 

Ilia’s in Cinder’s office before they know it, sliding smoothly into a quiet confidence that Weiss had doubted she could manage, offering up tidbits of bait in the form of data mining capabilities and networks of information to rival government surveillance. Cinder’s circumspect, level, her eyes flat as she pushes one question after another towards Ilia.

“We’re looking into bids for now,” Ilia says smoothly. “This much data, to make good use of it requires an enormous network of users--”

“I’m aware,” Cinder counters. “I can’t say that it’s the opportunity we’re looking for at the moment, though.”

“That’s too bad,” Ilia says. The video from her camera wobbles and blurs momentarily as she stands up and offers her hand to Cinder. “We’d hoped that we could come to a mutually beneficial arrangement with your organization, given the breadth of your resources, but it’s understandable if you don’t want to take on the financial risk of an investment of this magnitude.”

“You’re trying to goad me,” Cinder says, hand locked around Ilia’s.

“Of course not.” Ilia extracts her hand back and fiddles with her watch absently. “But our more silent partners had hoped that we could work with you instead of one of Jacques Schnee’s subsidiaries, given the grip they have on the data market.”

Cinder’s jaw clinches visibly, and Weiss swallows a cheer because the flash of irritation in Cinder’s eyes is enough, just enough, to get their foot in the door.

“I’m sorry we won’t be able to work together,” Cinder says evenly. “Best of luck.”

“I don’t need luck,” Ilia says with a shrug, and Cinder’s eyes flash again. “Thank you for your time.”

“We got her,” Weiss murmurs, and she doesn’t stop herself from slapping her hand against Ruby’s palm when it’s offered, enthusiasm cracking loudly between them.

* * *

Yang lines up another shot at the pool table and her arm snaps forward, the cue ball streaking towards the two and rocketing it into a pocket. She straightens up with a smirk and hipchecks Blake cheerfully before rounding the table to line up another shot. Weiss wrinkles her nose at her computer as much as at the sound of them playing a game of eight.

“So she’ll bite, right?” Ilia’s seated at her side, watching intently as Weiss cycles through office spaces for rent. 

“She’ll bite,” Weiss says. She clicks into one of the postings, a nondescript suite in a building downtown. “She doesn’t have the capital to outright buy into an arrangement with a data firm that large, but she has enough liquid that she can make an off the books deal for access to a portion of it, to get a foothold before anyone else does.”

“And then?”

Weiss presses her palms into her eyes, exhausted, running on two hours of sleep in four days.

“And then we have her on record as a government-affiliated corporation illegally buying data for commercial purposes, and we set the FBI on her, and we make a killing shortselling the stock,” Blake finishes from the pool table, nose wrinkling when Yang drops another solid. 

“How are you going to be sure the FBI will--”

“I know someone” Weiss says firmly. “In the FBI. They’ll be there.”

“And the stocks?”

“Ruby’s got it handled,” Weiss says with a groan, dropping her head down on her arms. “We good?”

“Yeah yeah yeah,” Ilia says. “I’m good. I just like to confirm.”

“Great,” Weiss mumbles out. “Can I sleep now?”

“Wimp,” Yang calls out breezily. “But yeah, go for it. You know where everything is.”

Weiss disappears in an instant, shoulders drooping with exhaustion and feet following a path that’s become familiar, and Ilia minutes later, back to her own apartment on the other side of town with a bag full of prep paperwork. Ruby’s been in her room for hours, handling the stock purchasing software and setting up shell companies to route ownership through. 

“Keep up, Belladonna,” Yang says with a triumphant twirl after she drops the eight again. “I really thought you’d be better at this, you know.”

“And what’s that supposed to mean?” Blake’s knuckles whiten around her beer bottle, shoulders stiff and face carefully blank.

“So far from what I’ve seen you’re good at everything except being friendly,” Yang says with a shrug. She racks the balls back up and offers the cue ball to Blake, who pauses, tilts her head, accepts it after a long moment. Yang leans against one of the windows, taking a slow pull of her drink, and watches as Blake lines up and breaks the rack, dropping four balls.

“See?” Yang says. “I knew it. You’ve been holding out on me.”

“I’ve been thinking about things that actually matter,” Blake corrects her. She chooses a line on the twelve and rattles it in to the side pocket. “Like how we’re running a job on someone who very nearly killed all of us, with _Weiss Schnee_ on our team.”

“Schnee’s good people.” Yang shrugs. “And she knows what she’s doing. Girl’s a natural at this.” 

Blake drops the fifteen and then the nine, and Yang wiggles her shoulders more comfortably against the window behind her. “I don’t trust her.”

“What, you think any of us trust each other?” Yang laughs into her beer, shaking her head. “I trust you as far as I can throw you, Belladonna, but what I _do_ trust is that you’re smart and you’ll make the right play.” She pauses, nose wrinkling. “Maybe not as far as I can throw you, actually. I’m pretty sure I could throw you pretty far.”

Blake pulls back from her next shot, straightening up and rolling the cue between her fingers. “Good to know we’re on the same page.”

“You’re a thief,” Yang says with a shrug, her eyes light and mouth lifting up into something that could be a smile or could be a smirk. 

“If I wanted to steal from you, I wouldn’t be standing right in front of you,” Blake says with a sneer. “Besides. You’re an assassin.” 

“Not technically.” Yang shrugs again. “I’m me. And I protect my sister.”

“You were black ops,” Blake says flatly. “Everyone in the game knows Yang Xiao Long. They used to send you in to take down entire governments.”

“I was,” Yang says after a long moment that stretches between them, silence crackling and charged. “But I’m not anymore.”

“That doesn’t mean you don’t still--”

“I’m not a murderer,” Yang says, deafeningly soft, and she leans her cue against the window, takes slow strides towards Blake. Her shoulders seem broader than ever, backlit by the lights of the city outside, and Blake’s stomach folds in on itself but she holds her ground, the pool table at her back and cue as good for a defense as a distraction in her hands. Yang crowds closer to her, hands falling onto the edges of the table and boxing Blake in, mouth more serious than Blake’s ever seen her.

“I’m not a murderer,” Yang says again, close enough that her breath skids over Blake’s skin and Blake shivers in spite of herself. “But I will do what I have to to protect my sister. To protect my team.”

“We aren’t a team,” Blake says, aiming for flat and hating the way her voice wavers. “One job. Nothing else.”

“We’re a team for this job,” Yang says. Her mouth tilts up into a smile, still infuriatingly _close_ , and looks deliberately down towards Blake’s mouth and then back up again. 

“I don’t work with teams,” Blake says in spite of herself and the way she can’t keep her eyes off of Yang’s mouth, the way the warmth radiating off of Yang has settled onto her skin like an electric charge.

“Doesn’t play well with others, right?” Yang tilts closer, fingers flexing audibly against the pool table, and her lips pull up just short of Blake’s. She holds her position, heat and light and want filling the air in front of Blake, and Blake finally caves and ditches the pool cue. It clatters to the floor as her fingers claw into Yang’s shirt, yanking her forward to kiss her, aggressive and needy and burning.

“One job. That’s it,” she mutters out when Yang’s hand tangles into her hair and yanks, arching her whole spine back so lips can land on her throat, and Blake can’t stop the groan that rips its way past her teeth. Fingers yank sharply at that button of Yang’s shirt, fumbling over them and pulling some of them loose until she can shove it off of Yang’s shoulders, get rid of it, touch skin that burns under her hands.

Her hand skids down along Yang’s shoulder, tripping over a knot of scar tissue, and it’s enough to redirect her attention away from the way Yang’s mouth is on her collarbone and hands are working her jeans down past her hips. What seems like miles of scar tissue stretch out from her shoulder, crawling down her arm, skin bunching in places where it shouldn’t and divots of shadow and puckered scarring pockmarking the entirety of her forearm. Blake’s hand stumbles down her bicep, muscle and scars flexing under her hand, and she traces fingertips softly, too softly, too gently, over a long line of obvious surgical scarring that follows the arc of Yang’s elbow.

Yang freezes for a split second, enough for Blake to yank her hand back and wonder where something that feels like an apology bubbling in her chest came from because she doesn’t _like_ Yang, she doesn’t like anyone on this team, but then Yang’s hands are harsh on her hips and turning her around, pressing her forward into the table and pulling her head back, and Blake forgets about scar tissue and the shudder that ripped through Yang’s entire frame when Blake touched her, forgets about everything else but the way Yang could burn her to pieces and she would let her.

* * *

Ilia strings Cinder along just long enough, toeing the line right up until Cinder offers her a check. Across the street, watching through the button camera on Ilia’s jacket, Weiss wobbles with relief and hits send on a text, and within ninety seconds a swarm of blue FBI jackets have descended on the building and Ilia’s slipped out in the fray.

“We did it,” she says slowly. Behind her, Yang’s got Ruby wrapped up in a hug, the two of them radiating energy as much as Blake’s scowl is a black hole of irritation at their antics. Weiss slumps back in her chair, turning to the other laptop that has Ruby’s software running on it and already starting to offload stocks. 

A hand falls heavy on her shoulder, gripping excitedly and practically shaking her out of her chair. “We got her,” Yang says with a grin down at her, and Ruby breaks out of the headlock and flings her arms around Weiss as well. 

“We got her,” Ruby yelps, piercing and shrieking in Wiess’s ear, and Weiss winces even as her hands come up to rest on Ruby’s arm, Yang’s hand. She tilts her head back until she can see Blake, who’s still standing separate from them all, arms folded over her chest and mouth set in a firm line, a walking shadow burning at the edges of Ruby and Yang’s excitement.

Weiss turns her attention back to the windows, watching as pedestrians stop to take pictures, as people are already being lead out in handcuffs, as a familiar flash of red hair brushes over an FBI jacket and her stomach twist in on itself for a moment, nostalgia warring against satisfaction.

“Give me 48 hours,” she says after a long moment, sliding free of Ruby and Yang and away from Blake. “It’ll take that long for the sales to process and go liquid, but I have some contacts in the industry who can make sure it’s clean. I’ll meet you all at the apartment in two days with the payouts.”

“And you’re actually going to be there?” It’s the first thing Blake’s said in hours. “Why should we trust that you aren’t going to keep it all for yourself?”

“Because I don’t want it,” Weiss says snidely. “I’ve had enough of money for my whole life, thanks. I don’t want all of it and I don’t want to have three criminals coming after me for it. I’ll be there.”

“Blake,” Ruby says with a whine. “Weiss wouldn’t rip us off.”

“You’re an--”

“Excellent judge of character,” Yang says over her, hand on Ruby’s shoulder and eyes locked on Blake’s. Weiss’s eyebrow lifts of its own accord, looking back and forth between the two of them, understanding growing out of the defiant tilt to Blake’s chin and the spark in Yang’s eyes. 

“If we’re all quite done,” Weiss says over the silence stretching through the room. She snaps the laptops shut and shoves them into the backpack she’d hauled over. “Two days, at the apartment.” 

She strides out of the room, leaving Ruby to handle the tension snapping between Blake and Yang. Her posture holds until she’s out of the building and then, abruptly, it shatters into trembling legs and shaking breaths. She slumps against the cold brick of the building, sucking in deep breaths, hands digging into her knees, because Cinder had tried to kill her and Weiss had turned it around and _won_. It’s the first victory she’s had in years, the first positive turn after so losing so much, and her heart skips in her chest at it. 

The door bangs open and Blake appears, stopping abruptly when she catches sight of Weiss.

“You’re okay,” she says flatly, not a question at all, but she also doesn’t walk away. “You have to be, you’re the one pulling down the--”

“I’m fine,” Weiss says. “I just-- haven’t slept enough.”

“Good to know you brought your A-game to this, Schnee,” Blake says with a sneer, familiar and sharp, but something softens in her eyes and her hands rests softly on Weiss’s shoulder. “You did good.”

“My father always did say I could do anything I set my mind to,” Weiss mumbles, and it startles something that could be a laugh out of Blake. Weiss drops her chin to her chest, breathing heavy against her own laughter, and drops down to crouch against the wall, letting her head fall back against it. 

Blake follows suit, crouching at her side and smiling-- really smiling, easy and unrestrained for the first time that Weiss has ever seen. “Lucky all of us that what you decided you wanted to set your mind to was being a criminal.”

“I’m not a--” Weiss starts, only to cut herself off when Blake shoves at her shoulder, nearly upending her balance. “I’m...not a bad person,” she amends. “Not like him.”

Blake stands back up slowly, looking down at Weiss, hands on her hips and head tilting. “No,” she says after a long moment. “You’re not like him at all.” 

She offers a hand to Weiss, waiting patiently until Weiss takes it and allows herself to be pulled up to her feet. 

* * *

An uneasy quiet settles into the room, filling the oversized apartment, and Weiss links her hands behind her back carefully and keeps her chin high.

“Holy _crap_ ,” Ruby squeals out. “Is this real? This is like four more zeroes than I expected!”

“It’s real,” Weiss says. “The fact that they held government contracts made the penalties significantly harsher than they would’ve been, and the timing was fortuitous enough to line up properly with a couple of different time zones’ and different stock markets, and. Well.”

“Fortuitous,” Yang echoes, still staring down at her check. “Right.” She raises an eyebrow at Weiss and cracks a grin, full of cheer as always, and slaps a hand against Ruby’s shoulder. 

Blake is still silent, staring down at the check in her hands, the enormous amount of money that was hers to do with as she wanted. “This is retirement money,” she says slowly. “This is buy an island and retire forever money.”

“This is buy _three_ islands and retire forever money,” Ilia mutters, finally breaking her own silence.

“It is.” Weiss folds her arms over her chest. “Though if you wanted to keep robbing my parents’ mansions as a hobby, I certainly wouldn’t stop you.”

It draws a laugh from them all, Blake’s quiet smile disappearing under Yang’s outright guffaw and Ilia’s surprisingly loud giggle.

“So that’s it, then,” Weiss says eventually. “It’s been--thank you, all of you, for this opportunity.” Her hands twitch, as if to offer a handshake, and she winds her fingers together.

“One job,” Blake says eventually. Her eyes flick over to Yang, to her easy posture and the miles of skin under her clothes that Blake had mapped, her bright eyes and broad shoulders. “No encores.” 

“No encores,” Ruby says with a whine, leaning against Yang’s side. “I’ll miss you guys!”

“It’s probably for the best,’ Yang says with a shrug, wrapping an arm around Ruby’s shoulders and keeping her focus on the tension in Blake’s jaw and the way she bites at her lower lip. “Teams are easier to track.”

“Right,” Weiss says softly. She folds her check and tucks it away into her bag, squares her shoulders, and strides out of the apartment without looking back. 

She’s barely made it two blocks before Ilia appears at her side as she waits to cross the street. “So I was thinking,” she says in lieu of greeting. “I know I was just here for the end but also--”

“Oh, hey, Ilia’s here!” Ruby bounds up to the both of them, slinging an arm around each of them with a whoop. “Hey, so, we-- Yang and me, we were thinking--”

“We were thinking maybe one more,” Yang says, falling into step next to them with her hands tucked into her jacket pockets. “We did make an _excellent_ team, after all.”

Weiss stumbles up onto the sidewalk, half pulled up by Ruby, and gapes at the three of them. “You want to-- _what_?”

“Try being a team, maybe.” Blake’s voice appears behind her, and Weiss nearly topples over, stumbling into Ruby instead and glaring at Blake for sneaking up on her, but Blake’s eyes are locked onto Yang. “She’s right, we were good together.”

“I-- _what_?” Weiss says. “What do you mean, one more. One more what?”

“One more asshole running an evil company,” Yang offers, one shoulder lifting lazily in a shrug. “You pick the job, Weiss. Right?” She glances to Ruby, to Ilia, to Blake, lingering too long.

“Right,” Ruby and Ilia says simultaneously. 

“Yeah,” Blake says softly. “You’ve got an eye for doing good, Weiss. And a good team to work with. So let’s do something with it all.”

Weiss gapes at all of them, even as something warm grows in her chest that feels nothing like worry or anxiety, nothing like being cast out of her family, nothing like her life spiraling out of control. It settles into something solid, something warm, something anchored in the work they just did and the work they could do together.

“We could do so much with the resources we can buy with this amount of money,” Ruby says. “So what do you say?”

“I,” Weiss starts helplessly, shifting from Ruby’s wide eyes and Ilia’s restrained smile, Yang’s broad grin, something that looks like belief and trust from someone who’d hated and robbed her family for as long as Weiss could remember. “I--

“Yes,” she says finally. “Let’s do it.” 


End file.
